SCO has announced its fourth quarter webcast and conference call. It's been moved up to Dec. 3 at 11 AM. It had earlier been announced for Dec. 8.

This couldn't have anything to do with the Motion to Compel Discovery oral arguments, now scheduled for Dec. 5, if SCO doesn't cough up some answers to IBM's interrogatories pretty soon, could it? Thanks to Dr. Stupid for noticing the change.

What I found interesting is their new self-description on the same page:

"The SCO Group, Inc., formerly known as Caldera International, Inc., is primarily engaged in the provision of reliable, cost-effective UNIX operating systems and software products to small and medium-sized business markets. The Company's SCOsource division was formed in January 2003 to review and enforce its UNIX intellectual property rights. It is also developing Web-based applications and products and services to facilitate connections to the Internet for its customers. The Company markets and distributes its software and related products indirectly through distributors and solutions providers, as well as directly to end user customers. The distributors include value-added resellers (VARS), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and systems integrators. The Company's products are marketed primarily in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Canada and Latin America. In July 2003, it acquired the assets, engineering personnel and technology of Vultus Inc."

If you didn't know better, you'd think they were staying in business. Reuters has a more full description, as they call it, but it's actually an outdated one (although not too out-dated since it mentions United Linux) because they describe SCO as a combined Unix, Linux house. Well, who can keep up with SCO's changes? They're like a chameleon. It keeps us all hopping, trying to keep our web sites up-to-date with their doings. I'm positively tuckered out myself. But here's how they used to be described:

"SCO's business has continued to focus on developing and marketing reliable, cost-effective Linux and UNIX software products and related services for the small business market. The Company continues to market SCO OpenServer and SCO UnixWare products. In addition, the Company renamed its Linux product offering to SCO Linux, powered by United Linux, to draw on the strength of the SCO brand. The Company is continuing to sell Linux and UNIX products and services to customers through an indirect, leveraged worldwide channel of partners, which includes distributors and solution providers. This worldwide distribution channel locally supports customers and resellers with minor modifications that fit their particular country's needs. . . .

"SCO Linux

"SCOLinux, powered by UnitedLinux, is an ideal product for building Internet-enabled business solutions. Based on the Linux 4.0 kernel, the product is a fully integrated and stable Linux operating system. SCO Linux saves users significant time and money in the installation, configuration, deployment and management of business solutions by providing default working configurations for secure Web, file, print and network infrastructure servers. Each configuration is out-of-the-box secure, easily deployed and manageable, using browser-based remote management and configuration utilities bundled in each system. SCO Linux is designed to permit existing UNIX-based users to migrate to Linux. SCO Linux is easy to manage and maintain using any of the management tools that are bundled with the product. The latest release, Linux 4.0, began shipping November 2002. . . .

"Support Services

"The Company provides a full range of pre- and post-sales technical support for all of its products, including SCO OpenServer, SCO UNIXWare and SCO Linux. It also provides technical support to all of its partners, including resellers, hardware and software vendors and solution providers, as well as directly supporting its end user customers. Technical support services include a range of options from single incident e-mail and telephone support, to dedicated enterprise level support agreements. Customers seeking additional technical support directly from the Company may enter into service agreements that best suit their needs.

"SCO's UNIX and Linux consulting services include project management, software development and programming, migration tools and services, as well as development of customized operating systems. The Company assists its end user customers and solution providers in planning, creating, implementing and deploying business application solutions.

It's also of interest that they list IBM, SuSE and Red Hat as their competition, so they can't say they were never a Linux company. Do you remember from,
IBM's Memorandum in Support of its Second Motion to Compel, IBM asking SCO whether the code in question was ever distributed or otherwise made publicly available by SCO and SCO giving a non sequitur answer that it "never authorized, approved or knowingly released any part of the subject code that contains or may contain its confidential and proprietary information and/or trade secrets for inclusion in any Linux kernel or as part of any Linux distribution."

Well, since they danced around and wouldn't answer directly, this web page lets IBM know that SCO certainly distributed something they called Linux, with "the Linux 4.0 kernel", whatever that is, apparently what they called that particular distro's kernel.

Anyway, the point is they did distribute, and they can hardly plead ignorance of the contents of their distribution, when they offered "a full range of pre- and post-sales technical support" for their Linux products. They'd even write you a personalized version, and I suspect you'd need to notice what was in there to do that.

SCO better not tell the court any fibs, or somebody might just tattle on him and tell his Mommy he's being a bad boy.